


Are These For Me?

by Izzerslololol



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: Republic Commando Series - Karen Traviss, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Clones, Drabble Collection, F/M, Fluff, Mando'a
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2008-10-11
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:57:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 13,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzerslololol/pseuds/Izzerslololol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>30_distractions drabble collection for ARC trooper Captain N-11 (Ordo) and Republic Treasury Agent Besany Wennen. Lots of fluff, glimpses of their relationship, and innuendo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jump Start

**Author's Note:**

> If you stumbled on here browsing fics for the Clone Wars: hello! This might not be what you're expected or used to. Ordo works within the Special Operations division of the Grand Army of the Republic, which allows for some flexibility in his schedule. Besany Wennen is an internal affairs investigator of the Galactic Republic Treasury. 
> 
> Their paths intersected while on a black-ops mission on Coruscant, and they've been together ever since.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First attempts at long-distance intimacy are somewhat awkward. Amplify that with a Clone trooper and an Internal Affairs agent with no social lives, and what you're left with is fluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 30_distractions drabble collection for ARC trooper Captain N-11 (Ordo) and Republic Treasury Agent Besany Wennen. Lots of fluff, glimpses of their relationship, and innuendo.

 

(prompt 01 - on the phone)

**Jump Start**

 

The conversations they had over comlink were often short, and sometimes awkward. Yet up until now, she had never fully found herself at a loss for words. Besany shifted the comlink from her right shoulder to her left and resumed chopping Naboo roots. They’d set off the local gingerfruit nicely, and finish off the last two dishes for next week’s set of dinners. Preparing meals ahead of schedule was a force of habit, as work rarely allowed her enough time to heat up a pre-made dinner on even the best of days.

The silence grated on her nerves. Her face felt hot and all she wanted to do was hide under her covers from sheer embarrassment. _Why hasn't he said anything? He must think I'm obsessed. Last time I listen to Mereel_ …

“Ordo? I’m sorry, that was inappro—”

“Red,” he interrupted softly.

Her teeth clicked together as her mouth snapped shut. She felt a flush creep up her neck as she failed to suppress a sheepish cringe, lips pressed together in a tight half smile.

“Red?” she asked, and laid down the blade on the cutting board.

“My fatigues,” he explained.

Besany swallowed and wiped her palms on a spare hand-towel. A part of her noted that this conversation steadily spiraled past awkward territory. She closed her eyes and rested against her kitchen counter, envisioning her Null leaning beside a wall and talking quietly in the comlink to her. Halfway across the galaxy, he said.

In just his fatigues.

“And you?”

Her eyes popped open. “I…” She paused and chewed on her lower lip. Oh, had she been someone else, she’d have said she didn’t think this through. But Besany was nothing if not thorough, and so that was not the case.

However, this was new territory for her. Or, perhaps, old territory never once revisited, up until her constant worrying and stress gave her the final push necessary to try something… different.

“Well…” She grinned nervously in the empty apartment and wrung the towel in her hands. Then, in a lowered voice, she continued, “I’m wearing a… dress.”

“A dress?” He chuckled darkly. “Really.”

A chill ran up her spine and heat curled in the pit of her stomach. “Business casual,” she elaborated. “It’s a turquoise green.”

“Green,” he murmured. In the background she heard bedsprings groan and assumed her Null was getting comfortable. Besany wondered what she was still doing in her kitchen.

“You’ve seen it,” she reminded him.

“I have.” He spoke roughly, voice dark, dangerous, and husky. _“Besany.”_

Her breath caught in her throat as a shiver peppered her spine. She pressed her open hand against the curve of her stomach as her eyes fluttered closed. The memory of that night several months ago came flooding back.

An outing in Coruscant’s nightlife materialized in her mind. The two of them, almost like a _normal_ couple doing _normal_ couple things—dining out, simple entertainment, dancing, and a speedy return home for _other_ activities. Moments like those, snapshots of memory, she often found trouble reconciling with his harder, colder side.

Suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, she grabbed the side of the counter to keep her balance and nearly dropped the com.

She _missed_ him. Terribly.

The realization shattered the mood on her end. “O-ordo.” Her voice cracked.

“ _Cyar’ika?”_ Though she couldn’t see him, she somehow knew he was at rapt attention, no longer relaxed on his bed, or cot, or wherever he happened to be at the moment.

“I _miss_ you,” she confessed lamely. _Funny how he’s the sometimes master of social faux pas, and yet you interrupt the most common intergalactic conversation between couples everywhere._ “When will you be back on Triple Zero?”

“Soon, _cyar’ika,_ ” he answered. “I will see you soon.”

The conversation drifted to small talk regarding his brothers as she completed the meal preparations and packaged the food away in labeled containers. On autopilot, she tossed the utensils to soak in her sink. Her feet led her to her couch, where she simply melted into the cushions and spare blanket as she shifted the comlink to the other ear.

“…while I can’t say I disapprove, I—”

“Ord’ika,” she interrupted gently.

“Yes, _cyar’ika?”_

Besany decided, for the second time that night, to reattempt the _jumpstart_ to the conversation.

“What are you wearing?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Glossary**  
>  _'ika_ \- suffix, affectionate expression/nickname (platonic or otherwise)  
>  _Cyar'ika_ \- loved one, darling, sweetheart (intimate)  
>  _Triple Zero_ \- military code/slang for Coruscant


	2. Sugared Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a fear whose origin he has yet to reveal to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 30_distractions drabble collection for ARC trooper Captain N-11 (Ordo) and Republic Treasury Agent Besany Wennen. Lots of fluff, glimpses of their relationship, and innuendo.

 

(prompt 02 - thunderstorm)

**Sugared Love**

 

“It was years ago,” he says solidly, holding his rigid posture in his chair. There’s no reason _not_ to believe him, so she lets it slide as she heats up the slow-cooked dessert—a thick pudding of blue milk, chunks of starchy fruit and tiny, translucent sweet beads.

A bright flash lights up the apartment.

He’s up and moving just as the deafening crack of thunder rattles the cupboard’s meticulously lined dishes. Though nonchalant, his careful positioning is not missed by her—his back directly facing the windows, one fist balled at his side and eyes straight ahead, unfocused.

The dessert fills the kitchen with its complex, heady aroma. Steam rolls off the pot as she gathers a small amount to taste. It’s hot, but not enough to burn, and slides over her tongue, sweet but not mind numbingly so.

_Perfect._

She pours a healthy portion over a slice of plain, sponge-like cake. The pastry soaks up the gooey blue liquid hungrily and crumbles within a few seconds.

“ _Cyar’ika—”_

His words are stopped by a spoon of sugared love thrust past his lips. Another flash lights up the kitchen. His eyes snap shut.

She wipes away the dribble of pudding from the side of his mouth, pulling the utensil away to plant a gentle kiss in its place. His hands drop to her hips and his eyes open, heavy lidded and on her.

 _It’s okay,_ she resolves. _When he’s ready._

She can wait.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Glossary**  
>  _Cyar'ika_ \- loved one, darling, sweetheart (intimate)


	3. EZ1138 Keldabe Radio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Null brothers inadvertently spot their awkward leader while on a date, and do what brothers do: cheer him on from far away.

(prompt 03 - chattering away)

**EZ1138 Keldabe Radio**

 

Mereel twisted the hydrospanner, jerked it to the right, and realized too late the tool wasn’t one of his personal set.

“ _Fierfek!”_

The compartment lit up electric blue as the tool and panel shorted out. The hydrospanner flew out of his grip, clattered down the vent and bounced outside.

He rammed the back of his head against the ceiling, swore, and then followed the path of the ‘spanner. Sticking his head out _Aay’han_ ’s side, he yelled out, “Jaing? Jaing!”

“ _Udesii, Mer'ika._ Up here.”

He craned his neck and looked up into his mirror image. Staring down from atop _Aay’han,_ Jaing reached out a Kaminoan-skin gloved hand. Mereel grabbed hold and climbed out of the compartment to take a seat next to his brother. Then he looked out over Kal’buir’s property.

Over 40 meters away, he picked out the shape of two people walking along the perimeter. One of them, a female, had shocking platinum blond hair that could not be more obvious to spot from any location. And from the way the couple seemed to be merged at the hips as they walked, he assumed the other, a male, was Ordo.

“Kind of cold for a casual stroll,” commented Mereel.

Jaing shrugged, easing his shoulders up and down languidly. “Some like it cold,” he murmured as he scanned the datapad in his lap. After a moment, he tapped in a command and set the pad to the side.

The silence dragged on. Mereel rolled that comment in his thoughts, wondering if his brother had an alternate meaning. Jaing leaned back on his hands, legs loosely crossed.

“Where’s my hydrospanner?” Mereel asked.

His brother waved his hand towards the edge vaguely and said, “Down there, somewhere.”

“No…” Mereel sighed, and watched his breath of condensed air drift away. _“Ner._ Regallis Eng FastTurn-5 alpha model.”

“The one you acquired from the Atrivis Sector?”

“ _Serim.”_ Mereel leaned back on his elbows.

The datapad began to beep softly. Jaing made no move to check it, so Mereel paid the pad no concern.

“Well… Ord’ika worked on _Aay’han_ earlier.”

“But the ‘spanner left behi—”

The datapad stopped beeping. _“Ibic EZ1138 Keldabe, Mandalore. Gar jatne'solus gayi'kaa'goyust par pakod cuyi’sush bal evaar'la glimmik.”_ And then music, the kind he identified as Fi’s preferred genre, began to play.

Whatever Mereel intended to say was forgotten. He looked from the datapad, to Jaing, back to the datapad, and then to the scenery. Part of him almost wished he hadn’t—he was in time to see his brother engaged in what appeared to be activities not meant for the public eye.

Needless to say, Mereel could not keep the grin from stretching ear to ear.

“Ohoho,” he chuckled. “That’s one way to pass the time, Ord’ika.”

Jaing snorted and landed a punch to his shoulder. _“Besom,”_ he grumbled, not quite straight faced.

Mereel faked a wince and rubbed the attacked location. “You wound me with your accusations.”

“You’re reading too much into it. They’re just… _cu'jorhaa'i, cuy'epa or'ilor?”_ Jaing leaned forward and plucked the datapad from the hull. He tapped another command, and the glimmik quickly warped into the type of song Mereel might have heard in a cantina on Nar Shaddaa.

“ _Cu’jorhaa’i ti mureyce,”_ Mereel corrected and watched the couple for a few more seconds.

Lying back to stretch out over the hull and stare at the clouds above, he decided the hydrospanner issue could wait.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Glossary**  
>  _Udesii, Mer'ika._ – Calm down, Mer'ika.  
>  _Ner._ – Mine.  
>  _Serim._ – Right.  
>  _Ibic EZ1138 Keldabe, Mandalore. Gar jatne'solus gayi'kaa'goyust par pakod cuyi'sush bal evaar'la glimmik._ – This is EZ1138 Keldabe, Mandalore. Your number one station for easy listening and contemporary glimmik.  
>  _Besom_ – Ill-mannered lout  
>  _cu'jorhaa'i, cuy'epa or'ilor?_ – talking, eating lunch?  
>  _Cu’jorhaa’i ti mureyce._ – Talking with kisses.


	4. Unexpected Company

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He thought he'd just... drop in, surprise her for once. He wasn't expecting the little visitor inside.

 

(prompt 04 - of the feline nature)

**Unexpected Company**

 

With a delayed woosh, the apartment door cycled open and revealed a stunningly beautiful woman. As she tucked a lock of pale blond hair behind her ear and rested her hands on her hips, it took him half a nanosecond to realize she stared at him with a pinched expression. Her keen, dark eyes scrutinized his appearance, blocking the entryway as she leaned against the doorframe.

Ordo inwardly blanched. Maybe she didn’t want to see him after all? He had commed ahead—it was late and she must have been tired—but she accepted his request for him to “swing by,” as she put it. Yet he couldn’t help but notice she looked disheveled, despite the finely tailored clothes lacking any visible disarray. His agile mind skimmed over appropriate words and phrases, but social etiquette was not his forte. Should he apologize? But apologize for what?

“Ordo,” she said, and visibly softened. The Null relaxed, wayward thoughts abandoned.

“Besany,” he replied.

She reached for his hand and Ordo allowed himself to be led into the small, meticulously kept apartment. As per instinct dictated, he scanned over her furniture, noting the abandoned pile of holovids on her coffee table, the compressed blanket strewn over the sofa cushions, and the stained ceramic mug placed precariously close to the edge of her kitchen table.

But the details of her home seemed absurdly irrelevant in comparison to how warm her hand felt in his. The close proximity made him uncomfortable in ways he, as of yet, had not quite been able to define.

“Are you hungry?” she asked after a moment, releasing her grip to reach into a high cupboard. He didn’t get a chance to see what she pulled out, however. A spot of movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention and he reacted, whipping to the side and pulling out his fully charged Blaster.

“Wait!”

Ordo froze, sights trained on a feline creature apparently unfazed by his weapon. The _round_ creature shook its flat face, sending ripples down its patchy black and brown fur as it let loose a very _displeased_ meow.

“Ordo,” gasped Besany from behind and to the right of him, “it’s just a cat.”

“…Are you sure?” he asked, weapon still raised and leveled on the ugly little ball of fur. It almost reminded him of a shape-shifting Gurlanin, and he had half a mind to put a round between its eyes, just to be sure.

“ _Yes.”_ She sounded torn between amused and terrified. “I’m watching it for a neighbor who’s out of town this week.”

The creature approached him, paws lifted with exaggerated steps and its flat nose held up in the air as though walking across tiled kitchen floor was far beneath its status. It resembled many a senator Ordo knew, and that did not help its case in his eyes. The cat meowed again, a mournful and irritating sound as it stopped at his feet and stared up at him expectantly.

“What do you want, you ugly little _gema’rugam?”_ Ordo made a shooing motion with his hand. The cat pulled its head back as if he’d slapped it, clearly offended. After letting loose another _displeased_ meow, it padded away. He frowned as he watched it go.

“It almost looks like a strill,” he said, in an effort to break the uneasy silence, and then slipped his Blaster back into its holster. “But much smaller, with two less legs.”

“And just as ugly,” Besany added, voice thick with laughter.

“Don’t let Vau hear you say that.” Satisfied that the cat wasn’t a threat, Ordo glanced over his shoulder. The beautiful woman caught his eye, flashing a dazzling smile, and held out her hand. He glanced down her arm, tracing the faint path of veins traveling beneath pale skin to her wrist. Part of him felt decidedly out of place in her kitchen, but it was only a small part, and he greatly enjoyed her smile. Looking up, he reached out and closed the distance.

“Hi,” Besany whispered.

He smiled. “Hi.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Glossary**  
>  _gema'rugam_ \- hairball
> 
>  
> 
> Cats do exist in the star wars universe... according to wookieepedia, anyway.


	5. Caramel and Vanilla

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, a bit of inattention leads to burned cookies, but burnt cookies aren't always a bad thing.

(prompt 05 - smoke )

**Caramel and Vanilla**

 

“Do you smell that?”

“Hm?” Besany pulled her attention from the stack of flimsi files spread out over her modest caffa table. Across from her on the opposite couch, Ordo rested with head tilted over the top edge to blink wearily at the ceiling.

“Smell's like smoke,” he said.

She frowned. When undertaking the task for cooking, or baking, she left her trust in the chrono-timer for the oven, so as to allow her to multitask in the wait time needed for food to cook. But earlier that evening, despite her normally strict discipline, her attention had been focused on the printed financial data, now marked up with red ink and notes, strewn before her across the table. 

“Smoke?” If she'd burned her cookies... Besany checked her chrono. _Oh no_. 

The thick cushions of her couch groaned in complaint as she stood from the comfort to navigate her sparsely-decorated living-room and around the island that separated it from the kitchen. She pulled on the handle to the oven door and, sure enough, the moment it gaped open, thin wisps of gray smoke spilled out the sides and stung her vision.

“ _Shab,_ ” Besany sighed as she slipped on her heat-proofed mitts and dragged the baking tray out. The metal clicked against the surface of the oven while the cookies trembled and bubbled—the batter still soft despite the charred edges.

The mitts scratched against her palms as she pulled them off and dropped them aside the sink. The smoke stung, but the damage didn't _look_ too bad. Which meant she'd either set the timer wrong... or the timer failed to ring. She ran her hands up the sides of her arms and came to rest with them crossed over her chest.

The blasted chrono blinked innocuously up at her from its place atop the oven. The numbers flashed the exact time... and that's it.

Or third—she'd forgotten to set it at all.

“Everything all right?”

Had it been earlier in the day, or earlier in the month, Besany would have jumped right out of her skin at his sudden close proximity—once again, she failed to hear him move until he'd deigned to make his presence known, directly beside her. But it wasn't earlier, or any other day, and so she barely reacted at all. Instead, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the island counter, still facing the oven.

“They're burned,” she explained. Her voice cracked and she felt the sting at the corner of her eyes. 

Ordo moved in, slow, with arms opened and palms facing her as if to indicate that he were harmless. He closed the gap, trailing his fingers across her shoulder to tuck the loose blond strands behind her ear, and followed through with a soft kiss to her temple. His hand continued, sliding down her back and around her waist, to settle against her side.

“You're upset,” he observed. 

Besany sputtered a laugh as she pressed a hand over her brow and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“It's not about the cookies,” Ordo continued, hesitant. “Something I did?”

The question itself was ridiculous—absolutely, totally, in every way. Yet the honest, almost scared, tone took her by surprise and she snapped her head up to look him in the eye.

“No.” She willed all of the brevity she felt into the tone of her voice. “Nothing you did.”

Then she looked across the way to the resting, slightly charred cookies.

“It's the.” She stopped. Swallowed. But she couldn't bring herself to say it. _My father died five years ago today._ Instead, “They were my father's favorite.” She motioned to the cookies.

“I hadn't meant for them to... _burn_...” Her voice cracked and she compressed her lips, squeezed her eyes shut and rolled her head back to face the ceiling. She'd thought she'd dealt with this. Five years should have been enough time.

Ordo remained silent, and opted instead to respond by rubbing soft circles over the small of her back. She breathed, counting down in one of many mental exercises she'd practiced to keep her expression unreadable.

But they just didn't work. Not for this.

So, tucked up against Ordo's side, she took comfort in the heat of his presence. The mixed emotions swelled in her chest, choking her lungs and squeezed tight around her heart...and then momentarily subsided as she relocated her center again. _At least try the cookies,_ she could hear her father say, _Before you cry over them._

It wasn't about the cookies, but she shelved the grief anyway.

Then she leaned forward and plucked one of the cookies from the tray. She blew it on it, warm but not hot, and bit into the least charred side. A heady aroma of burnt sugar followed the flavor of sweet, smoky, caramel bites in vanilla and warmed her down to her toes. 

_See?_ She could hear her father say. _I love them._

She opened her eyes as Ordo's free hand grazed her knuckles, and gently twined around her own. His eyes flickered from her expression to the treat between her fingers, and back. Her heart jumped into her throat as she allowed for the cookie to be pulled to his mouth, a small bite disappearing past his lips.

His eyes fluttered closed. 

“Good?” she whispered.

“Yes.” His eyes opened and he held her gaze. The moment hung, tight, in the air. The tension grew. It was inappropriate, she thought, to grieve one moment only to feel this way in the next. But she knew her father wouldn't have minded... would have gone so far as to approve of him, and her moving on with her life.

Oblivious to her thoughts, Ordo echoed her question: “Good?” 

The thought of finishing the cookie crossed her mind. It wandered further, to darker places. But they would have to wait. Besany disentangled her hand from his and set the half-eaten cookie back on the tray. Then she reached back, and took his hand in hers.

“I think so,” she said. “Yes.”


	6. New Experience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time is fleeting, he recalled his realization over the return to Coruscant. Make the best of it.

(prompt 06 - kiss)

**New Experience**

 

Moments like these, where Ordo desperately found himself tightly locked in an internal struggle over the right words or phrases, were few and far in between. Or at least, they were supposed to be, but he'd found himself at a loss more frequently than he cared to admit over the past several days. The new emotions, the sudden upheaval and developments, were all brought to a head in too condensed a time frame to fully allow for him to process his own internal changes.

There was no denial of his gap in knowledge, his inability to grasp the intent behind otherwise innocuous words shared between two people. It was no help that his brother, Mereel, spoke in riddles and homilies in answer to his questions, and for why he could not ascertain—though he suspected his brother partook bizarre amusement over his obvious discomfort.

Ordo floundered beside the left arm of Agent Wennen's couch, unsure of the direction in which the evening would go. The furniture's upholstery looked comfortable, inviting even, but he still hesitated on the cusp of deciding whether to sit or remain standing—he was simply too preoccupied. He struggled under the weight of internal distress, the helplessness that first assaulted him during the visit to his comrade, his _vod_ , imprisoned within a vegetative state and retained in the home of Jaller Obrim. It lingered while he escorted Agent Wennen home, and then... was he meant to do something else?

He forgot to ask.

"Ordo."

He turned to face Agent Wennen— _Besany_ , he silently corrected himself. Exhaustion wore on her like a layer of ashen sickness, with eyes sunken and skin drained pale, lined with stress, concern, and confusion that seemed to age her—a malnourished appearance that, he was sure, he mirrored as well. But despite her fatigue, or perhaps in spite of it, the strong, _atin'la_ , beautiful woman he recognized underneath the burden of waiting met his eyes and held them.

 _Time is fleeting_ , he recalled his realization over the return to Coruscant. _Make the best of it._

Ordo took a small step forward, wanting to close the distance but unsure _how_ to follow through, _how_ to request permission for intimacy through bodily gestures, but needing it all the same. This social ritual, this instinctive dance, was lost to him and that revived the sore spot of inadequacy that pained him.

Yet Besany seemed oblivious to his struggle. She moved to meet him, her hands coming to rest on his chest armor, and her sudden, slight, shift of her weight forward to her toes. His brain clicked in recognition, the insecurity fell away under the rapid increase of his pulse behind his ribs and under the tensing of his muscles, braced for _something_ but not quite sure _what_.

The gentle pressure against Ordo's mouth felt strange, different, and not altogether unpleasant. But just as abruptly as he registered the touch, she pulled away. Her cheeks flushed red, obvious even in the dim lighting of her apartment.

"Sorry," she apologized. "I, ah. I should have..."

"No," he interrupted, and then noticed that his hands had settled on her waist without his awareness. "I. It."

It was not like him to stutter. He took a steadying breath, silently relieved that she had not tried to move away, and surprised at the feeling.

"This. It's a new experience," he clarified.

"O-oh. You didn't respond, so I..."

 _Oh._ "I was... surprised." He smiled. "Can we try again?"

"Yes," she breathed.

He very nearly missed the embarrassed flush across her cheekbones deepen in color as he dipped in for another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Glossary**  
>  _atin'la_ \- stubborn, tenacious


	7. Respite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone deals with grief differently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler warning for Republic Commando: Order 66.

( prompt 07 - hug )

**Respite**

 

Long days were, for lack of a better term, _long._ Ordo felt it in his bones when he finally passed over the threshold and paused as the door hissed shut behind him. He wondered if he had taken indoor heating for granted in the past, and quietly vowed to rectify that issue. After all, he had been standing out in a mid-winter snowstorm for the better part of the night and most of the early morning.

What had he been doing? Well, he wasn’t sure.

Ordo did not appreciate idleness. In fact, he loathed it to a degree. There was work to be done, of that he knew.

Yet yesterday he had run across a problem, an obstacle. An impasse—the desire to perform any task, the motivation normally accessible to tackle otherwise impossible challenges, was missing. Beyond reach. For all his hard-hitting intellect he found himself without the energy to so much as solve a simple slicing-related irregularity.

Melted snow dripped down his coat as he shrugged off the garment and hung it on the rack along the wall. With meticulous care he unraveled the strip of thick cloth around his neck, followed by the padded vest, and hooked them on either side of the coat. Then, kicking off his boots, he crept through the small sanctuary commissioned by Kal’buir.

He had tried to clean his weapons, but there was nothing to be gained after the fifth strip-down. The HoloNet broadcasted the same Imperial propaganda day-in day-out, and enough speculation on what _wasn’t_ being said was enough to drive even the most disciplined Teräs Käsi specialist to insanity.

Restlessness—he couldn’t sit still.

His mind spun so fast his thoughts blurred to ringing silence. What had worked in the past did not work for him now and while he had some inclination as to exactly what the route of the problem entailed, he could not be enthused to analyze his psyche in the middle of the night.

All sleep attempts were thwarted. So he did the sane thing. He went for a walk. Outside—where he would not wake anyone.

The soft scent of charred eggs and nerf steak brought his attention back to center and he stopped dead in the hall. His chrono read 04:51. No one in their right mind would be awake at the present moment.

The subtle irony of that thought was not lost on him.

Decision made before he even realized he had considered something other than falling into bed, he followed his nose, literally, to the dining area. He skimmed his hand across the thick wooden tabletop’s surface and came to a halt just before entering the kitchen.

Besany wasn’t facing him, but from the subtle change in posture he knew she picked up on his presence.

So he stood silently. He felt uncomfortable, unsure, and suddenly tired, as if the past hours rushed to catch up with him in that moment. His knees threatened to buckle. The hard floor beckoned, appearing a good deal more comfortable than he remembered.

His eyes slipped closed. His heart picked up its pace.

Ordo felt rather than saw her move. He could feel her, the heat of her body close yet not quite touching him. Then soft hands gently pressed a small piece of sticky sweet cake past his lips.

It caught him off guard, but the effect was immediate. The sugar entered his system, and all the little positive associations his brain connected with uj-cake sent his sensors into calm placidity. He felt her hands on his arms, easing him back until he dropped into a chair.

His eyes popped open and he looked up at her.

She looked tired. He imagined that he looked the same.

A hundred things came to mind, but he couldn’t get the words past the small bit of cake he rolled languidly over his tongue.

Then, slowly, she stepped forward. Instinctively he leaned in, eyes sliding shut as his cheek pressed against the soft cloth over her midsection. Her hands wrapped gently around him, one entwined in his hair and gently massaging his scalp while the other stroked his cheek. Part of him struggled against something inwardly, but he dropped it. There was no fighting anything at the peak of exhaustion.

Instead he cautiously curled his arms around the back of her thighs, letting out a shuddering breath. He relaxed under her touch, turned to bury his face in the folds of her nightgown, and stopped thinking at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is my personal favorite, so far.


	8. Lunch Under Cover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While under-cover as another Trooper, Ordo gets taken out to lunch by suspect Agent Wennen. Somehow, he has a feeling this simple gesture means more than he had originally assumed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler warning for Republic Commando: Triple Zero.

( prompt 08 - don't touch me)

**Lunch Under Cover**

 

Over the span of his brief life, Ordo had learned a good many things, mostly skills he knew he’d utilize in the future. Helpful. Reliable. Informative. Many life-saving. A few regarded social interactions.

None seemed to apply to his current predicament.

“Dessert?” she offered with a genuine smile as she nudged the slice of cake across the diner table.

A simple gesture. Meaningless. Two people well acquainted sharing food to lessen the cost of the bill. The Null had no doubt that the price would be higher than their meal’s equivalent in a different part of the city. Price hikes were inevitable when dining in the so-called classier quadrants of Coruscant.

Not to mention the fluctuating economy all veering precariously on every battle’s outcome across the galaxy.

He bit down on the near-instant urge to refuse—for what reason he wanted to say _no_ , he was not entirely certain—and reminded himself of Trooper Corr, the nice, compliant, calm, obedient soldier.

The situation made him uncomfortable. This… _woman_ made him uncomfortable. She watched him expectantly. Ordo had found himself cornered.

First name basis. Trooper Corr hesitated on that little detail. He remembered.

The Null met her eyes and offered a small smile. “Thank you…” He hesitated, though out of good acting skills, or his own reluctance to say _her_ name, he didn’t know. “Besany.”

Supervisor Wennen reached across the table to pat his gloved hand.

He very nearly jerked out of her grasp. Even through the gauntlet he could feel her touch—it left a tingle and a distinct sensation over his skin that oddly felt as though he had been scorched.

Only through years worth of discipline had he managed not to react—to do so would blow his cover, though he did briefly consider fleeing the situation in a rapid yet controlled manner. Unfortunately, the suppressed reaction resulted in a muscle spasm that reached up from his fingers to painfully tighten in the back of his neck. That _hurt._ His teeth grit together so tight he could hear them creak inside his skull.

Thankfully her expectant and lightly amused expression didn’t change. She hadn’t caught it.

The Null drew in a shallow breath and relaxed long enough to take a bite. The sickly sweet concoction of cream, sugar, and fruit _melted_ over his tongue—it was almost enough to soothe his nerves completely.

“You’re welcome,” she said, still carefully watching him. “I hope you like it. It’s a bit too sweet for me.”

Another embarrassed smile worked its way over his lips as he took another bite. Somehow, he had a feeling this _simple gesture_ meant more than he had originally assumed. It felt… _important,_ despite being an incredibly miniscule act in comparison to the rest of the galaxy. It was, in a way… _intimate._

Irregardless, it was definitely _distracting._

He polished off the cake, and hoped Trooper Corr would not hold this against him.

 


	9. Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has at least one of those brief moments... even hyper intelligent Advanced Recon Commandos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A drabble that actually skirts the definition of drabble.

( prompt 09 - running water )

**Decisions**

 

He woke to the soft ticking of a caf dispenser bubbling to life. The gentle aroma of caffa beans mixed with an unidentified blend of exotic spices wafted past his nose. It tingled, but he resisted the powerful urge to sneeze. Instead, he blinked the sleep from his eyes and shifted slightly, mind whirling with activity despite his grogginess moments earlier. Where was he?

The warm body beside him shifted and brought his attention to the well-used couch he currently rested on. A blanket obscured his view, but the shock of platinum blond hair was enough of a hint.

Ordo froze. His mind scrambled and he recalled an artery clogging dinner-by-delivery, followed by a strangely informative, yet mind-numbingly dull, holovid featuring one corrupt law firm or some other… and then he woke to the scent of caffa.

Unsure of what to do, his fingers twitched over the rough material as he reassessed the situation. From the way they stretched out over the couch—one that suddenly seemed too small for the both of them—he ascertained it would be nigh impossible to extract himself from her grasp without disturbing her. He held some reservations over waking her, though unsurprisingly, he did not want to leave.

It was a simple decision, really.

 


	10. Someday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone deals with loss differently, part two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for Republic Commando: Order 66. Another short drabble.

( prompt 10 - silence )

**Someday**

 

He takes two unsteady steps, chubby hands grasping air in frustration, and then falls on his bottom. His eyes widen, shining with unshed tears.

Besany swallows, throat tight, as she watches Etain breeze across the open floor and sweep the child up into her arms.

The holo-image flickers as the datapad shakes in her grip. The ex-agent releases her breath and switches the capture off, flinching at the sudden stark contrast between the dark and the pale blue from seconds before.

Gently setting down the datapad, she eases under the covers beside her sleeping husband and silently waits for morning.

 


	11. It's Inappropriate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was just one of those things. Highly inappropriate thoughts in an inappropriate environment, that needed working out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for **explicit content** in this chapter.

( prompt 11 – lust; sex; horny )

**It's Inappropriate**

 

A rush of adrenaline coursed through his heart, trembled inside his chest and warmed him with an unplaced need that, for the moment, seemed sorely misdirected. And inappropriate.

Wholly inappropriate.

He clasped his hands behind his back with feet apart at parade rest and waited, patient. Technically, he should not have been able to see nor hear what occurred in the office behind its closed doors, but he'd brokered access remotely to the security network installed throughout the defense armory facility, and watched the proceedings via his HUD inside the safety of his helmet.

“I hear what you're saying,” Besany responded coolly from behind a desk at the officer, a human, who shifted his weight imperceptibly from one foot to the other. Good. He was uncomfortable. “Might I remind you that it also makes no sense.”

“Ma'am—”

“No,” she repeated, rising from her chair with such aplomb that Ordo likened her to a goddess.

And then paused.

Ordo gave himself a mental shake. Flowery imagery was not the kind of language he thought in. Did he hit his head earlier? Eat something wrong? Neither seemed likely.

“Now, you are going to listen to me, very carefully.” She enunciated each word as if speaking to a small, foolish, child. “You will owe a female officer the respect that she is due.”

She clamped her mouth and leveled her gaze on him.

He shifted.

“Well?” she snapped.

“I—I will owe a female officer the respect she is due.”

Her eyes narrowed and she stared, the seconds dragging in sharp silence.

“That's right,” she stated, the picture of calm. “Now, not only are the files you've given me incomplete, but they are so poorly done that I'm convinced a mynock would have placed more thought into them. If you believe that you can simply skimp on relevant financial data involved in the property of the government of the Galactic Republic, then you are not only naive, but suicidal. Or is it that you believed you could simply dump the work onto the woman, who, might I remind you, now stands before you, and holds your name in contempt?”

She stepped around the desk and thrust the datapad into his chest, hard enough to startle him back a step. Her height afforded her the ability to stare him down directly in the eye.

Ordo felt his pulse quicken.

Besany continued: "As you inadvertently revealed earlier, the problems of this facility are a direct result of your blatant disrespect, arrogance, and _utter_ incompetence—the kind of unacceptable behavior that leads to deep holes in banking statements and _a lot of dead men_."

She paused, eying him from head to toe as if examining a plant for dead leaves or branches for culling. Ordo recognized it well—and inwardly likened it to the expression Walon Vau slipped on when he'd decided it was time to forcibly remove another digit from a suspect's hand. He'd never say as much out loud—she had a severe moral line that, even at a mere suggestion that she might approach crossing it, caused her deep distress.

He never wished to be the cause of it.

"This is your first, and only, warning. If you fail to submit the data I am in need of in a timely manner...” She smiled. The gesture failed to reach her eyes. Even Ordo, who was not under its direct purview, felt the temperature drop a few degrees.

“I may not have the authority to take your head clean from your shoulders, but I will make you so utterly regret the moment you used your families' fat wallets to buy your political position into an army of slaves that when I am done with you, the loss of your head will be the absolute _least_ of your concerns.”

And then she relaxed, the ice and severity of her expression melting away under a warm, genuine demeanor that belied the seriousness of their conversation.

Part of him wished he'd been in the room with her. Not for moral support, as she clearly did not need it, but to appreciate the show on a firsthand level—and that definitely pushed back into inappropriate territory.

“Now, if that's all...?”

“Y—Yes ma'am,” the officer responded.

“Send the Captain in. You may go.”

“Yes ma'am.”

The door to the office cycled open and the man stepped out, face drawn and pale. He nodded to Ordo, unable to meet his visor, and briskly walked away.

Ordo's heart pounded against his ribs, mouth dry. A tingling warmth hummed beneath his skin. It was not a reaction he'd expected to have while watching her chew out that fool, but now that he'd realized what it was, he meant to take full advantage of it.

He accessed the security cams and temporarily looped into the feed a false prerecording—they would need privacy—as he stepped into the office. The wall panel beeped in ascent under his code, and the door locked behind him.

Besany rested against the edge of the desk, one hand across her brow, eyes closed. “Sorry,” she said.

The seals of his bucket hissed open under his hands in response. He slipped off the _buy'ce_ as he approached Besany with cautious steps, and came to a halt just shy on the side of appropriate.

Tension pulled tight the air of the room. He leaned down, hyper aware of the heat of her body, and set his _buy'ce_ on the surface of the desk behind her.

By her ear, he breathed, “That was impressive."

Her hand dropped and her head snapped up as her eyes fluttered open, apparently startled, though he couldn't be sure if it was at his proximity or his comment. She scanned his face, her surprise giving way to the blush that crept across her cheeks.

Ordo swallowed.

“You... heard all that?” she asked.

He loosened the clasps that held his gauntlets in place next, taking his time in order to preserve the integrity of the electronics and the leather. Then he bent forward again. The intensity of her gaze burned into him as he set his gauntlets down beside the helmet.

“Yes.”

As he straightened, his eyes flickered down to the small smile that pulled at the side of her lips.

“Ordo?” she asked. He could not wrest his attention from the curve of her mouth.

“Yes?” he asked.

Her smile widened, tongue slipped out to wet her lips.

Ordo swallowed, and dragged his gaze back up to her eyes.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, voice low, intimate. It elicited a shudder that tensed down his spine.

He allowed his eyes to wander, paused at her lips, admired the curves of her body, and returned to meet her gaze—so warm, and inviting, and...

_Besany._

“It's inappropriate,” he explained.

“Tell me?” The husk of her voice belied her intentions. She hooked a hand in his belt and tugged him close, flush between her legs.

His hands raised up to smooth the hair from shoulders, and cupped her face. "Hearing you speak that way." He dipped down to graze the words over her lips—and just that small bit of the contact sent sparks straight down his spine. "Does things to me."

"Oh?" Her smile warmed against him. "I couldn't tell." One hand touched his cheek, skimmed the corners of his jaw and settled at the crux of his neck and shoulder. "Tell me more."

"You command respect." He nipped her lower lip and she gasped, lips parting beneath his. He pressed forward, taking his time in tasting her, before he gripped her by the hair and gently tugged her head back. He traced the edge of her jaw with his teeth, and whispered against her ear: "Always in control." She shuddered under his hands.

He dragged his fingertips along the bare skin of her arms and down the sides of her ribs, coming to rest at her waist. "Powerful," he murmured against her pulse.

"Ordo." She shivered.

He pulled back to press his lips to hers. She responded with an urgency that mirrored his own, her fingers knotted in his hair to hold him down and drown him under the intensity of her desire.

He moved his hands further downwards, mapping the curve of her hips as he skimmed his fingertips around and beneath her thighs. He cupped her bottom and squeezed, swallowing the moan that spilled from her, and lifted her as though she weighed nothing.

Her legs immediately clamped around him to cross behind his thighs, and she ground down against his armor. He froze and inhaled, sharp, as his memory supplied the feeling of the movement against him, had he not been blocked by the plates.

He set her on the edge of the desk and broke the kiss to ask, “Is this all right?” Her legs held him in place, flushed against her and immobile. He wanted to tear off the armor plates, toss aside the ones that blocked the parts of him at attention and swollen.

Besany freed a hand from his hair and reached for the buttons of her tunic, undoing the ties one-handed to allow the blouse to fall open and expose herself to his eyes.

Normally she was so put-together, perfectly neat, perfectly presentable. But now she half-laid before him, tunic fallen open, skirt bunched above her thighs, hair mussed, with a rose-colored blush that dusted her skin.

Desire burned through him. He swallowed again.

“You were right.” She ground against him as she placed one of his hands over her breast, the bud of her nipple perked beneath his touch. “It was inappropriate.”

Besany's chuckle fluttered light through her chest as she rose to push a kiss to the underside of his chin and nipped his jaw, not nearly as careful as he had been with her. His fingers twitched against her and she hummed. He wanted to push her down, tear away the lace and feel her writhe against him, surround him with her warmth and bring him down from the corded tension as she cried out his name.

Instead he waited, patient, for her assent.

“Continue,” she ordered with a sharp nip against the sensitive curve of his ear.

He replaced his palm with his mouth, taking her nipple between his lips and teased with delicate strokes of his tongue. She gasped, hands finding their way into his hair once more, with her head rolled back to face the ceiling.

“Ah,” she groaned as he gently nipped and then moved to repeat his attentions on the other. “Oh, _force._ ”

He dragged his fingertips along the inside of her legs, the muscles trembling under his touch and bumps blossomed over her skin in his wake. He reached his destination with one hand, skimming the edge of the lace and tugging gently at the elastic.

Her body broke in a fit of shudders as he teased, skimming everywhere but where he knew she desperately wanted him to be.

"Ordo," she snapped, breathless, yet still able to communicate her ire with just her tone.

He released her breast with a smile and a, "Yes?" as he leveled his full attention on her. “What do you want me to do?”

Her blush deepened. Her eyes slid to the side with lips screwed tight, awkward embarrassment tying the words behind them. Ordo attempted to kiss that twist away, and drew his tongue against the edge of her jaw to her ear. She gasped. He held still.

"Besany. Tell me," he murmured. Her fingers tightened in his hair. "Tell me what you want." He dipped his head gently bit. She shuddered as he soothed with a soft suck of his lips to the skin.

"Oh." She groaned. "Ordo, I. Ah."

He grazed his teeth against the shell of her ear. "Tell me."

"Touch me," she whispered. A sharp pang of heat pulsed through him as she wrest his head by the hair back to bump foreheads with her.

Against the smooth, slightly dampened fabric between her legs, he rubbed his fingers in rough, experienced strokes—the way he knew she appreciated. Her eyes slipped shut as her mouth parted and she inhaled sharply. The play of emotions over her face commanded his attention, torn in the border between awed exaltation and impatience. He pressed harder, responding to her nonverbal queues, and slipped his fingers past the fabric into the heat of her. His thumb gently caressed the sensitive bundle of nerves of her clit as he curled his fingers within her, and won him a full-body shudder that wracked her. She gasped, louder, eyes fluttering under rapid blinks, as the shudders pressed closer and closer together.

"Ah," she moaned, eyes heavy-lidded and on his, pupils blown wide with a slivered ring of the irises around them. " _Ord'ika_."

With a heady rush he knew he wanted—needed—to see her come undone, to be the one to push her over the edge. To dismantle that control and bring her to pieces with just his hands.

"I want to see you come apart," he hushed, transfixed. "Come, Besany." He pushed another finger inside, the heat and trembling contractions of muscles around them sending powerful, painful, jolts of desire straight down to his groin. "Come for me, Bes'ika."

“O-oh, force. _Ordo._ ”

He could see the moment her climax took her tumbling over the edge. And her eyes fluttered closed. A cry escaped her throat. She clutched her hands in a white-knuckled grip in his hair. He eased her down over the desk, her shivering legs still tight around him as she slowly came down from the rush, and grinned.

She watched, eyes locked on his, as he moved his hand to his mouth and took his time to savor the taste as he cleaned her from his fingers.

"Ordo, come here." Her whole body seemed to hum as she hooked her hands in his armor and brought him down into a kiss that curled around his heart. Her hands, still shaking, moved to his belt to pull the straps loose, when a series of beeps rang out from his helmet.

Ordo froze, hands in mid-air, as he dragged his attention away from his beautiful _cyar'ika_ to the helmet that stared away from them.

The seconds dragged, but it didn't ring again.

He traced his way down her body to resume the drag of his tongue over her breast and trace the endearing blush that colored her skin around the aureola... when the beeps sounded again.

“ _Osik_.” He sighed.

Besany leaned up on her elbows as he reached over to pluck the bucket from the surface, and placed it over his head. He blinked to the censor, activating only the audio feed.

“What?” he snapped.

“ _Ord'ika_ ,” Mereel crowed. “You sound well. Congratulations.”

He wrestled with the flare of irritation, and lost. “What the _haran_ —”

“You, alone, in a locked office with Besany, with the security feed looped? Come on. Not subtle at all.”

Ordo's stomach flopped. “What? Do you—”

“Oh no, I'm not calling about that, I just noticed your handiwork as I sought to locate you. No one else noticed, so you don't have to worry, but I know you.”

Ordo licked his lips, and tasted Besany. The glimmer of irritation flared to frustration. “Then _why_ are you interrupting me?”

“So that's a yes, then." A chuckle. "Naughty boy.”

He was going to kill him. “I'm going to kill you.”

“Later. We have an emergency downtown and I need your help sorting it. In person, I'm afraid.” Pause. “I wouldn't have called you if I could get someone else to handle it. I'm deeply sorry about this.”

Ordo closed his eyes and breathed.

“Fine. Send me the coordinates. I'll be there ASAP.”

He eased the bucket off his head, the intense disappointment gripping tight his heart.

“Time to go?” she asked, though it was clear she'd already suspected as much. Besany had replaced the buttons of her tunic and straightened her skirt, once more presentable... aside from the mess of her hair. He moved to help smooth the tangles, but she caught his hand midair, and positioned his palm against her cheek.

“That was Mereel,” Ordo explained. “He says hello. And yes... it's time for me to go.”

Besany smiled that small, intimate curve of her lips that she saved just for him, and pressed a gentle kiss against the inside of his palm.

He smoothed her hair with his other hand. Just the thought of leaving her pained him.

“Come straight to me once you're done,” she murmured against the pulse of his wrist. “Straight to me.”

"Okay." Ordo swallowed, eyes sliding shut as another pang of desire wracked him. Walking was going to be difficult. He allowed himself to be pulled down once more. Her tongue flicked against his and she sucked his lower lip between her teeth. “Okay,” he gasped, and felt her chuckle in response.

"Good."

He replaced his gauntlets and helmet, repaired the security feed seamlessly, and unlocked the door. The doors cycled open, and stared innocuously as him. _It won't be long. Shouldn't be_. He unclenched the fist at his side, willing each joint to relax separately, and then stepped out into the hall to make his way to the office's parking bay.

As he lifted the speeder that would suffice to bring him to his next destination, a message pinged his personal channel. He accessed it, and couldn't help the smile.

 

**Plans For Tonight: Highly Inappropriate. With love, Besany.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some small edits were made to wording and grammar. No major changes.


	12. Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stress is enough to keep her up at night.

( prompt 12 - Sleep Deprivation )

**Nightmare**

 

There are times when she feels inexplicably lost in her carefully arranged life. She tries not to dwell on these moments as they come, though they’ve come in increasing succession. Instead she puts her eyes to the datascreens and stare at tax audits until her pupils burn and her face aches and her lunch break is taken a little early because she suddenly, desperately needs air.

Sometimes it’s not enough.

The mid-morning skylanes are as crowded as the mid-day’s—filled with airspeeders and metrocabs and blasting horns and raging obscenities—but not as much as evening’s. She’s on her fifth cup of caffa with no cream and too much sugar and cautiously toeing the line at the tapcaf for an extra box of glazed nuts and cheffa cake for the visitors who never come.

When she closes her eyes—on her pillow, down in line, back at work, on the way home, and everywhere in between—she sees Dad sinking beneath sterile white sheets, smiling with a hundred IV lines plugged into his skin while a medical droid's monitor beeps his life away.

And then he isn’t Dad, he’s Fi—close cropped black curls, tan skin, sunken eyelids, and calm disposition.

But that’s wrong too, because his shoulders are too broad, face too scarred, hair lightened from exposure, eyes too calculating and too serious.

Then they open and it’s like looking into a window of a person who sees everything, processes everything, and feels _everything_ all at once.

And her heart breaks, because he isn’t Dad, isn’t Fi, isn’t anyone but Ordo… and Ordo does not see her. Does not see _anything,_ anymore—but sinks beneath sterile white sheets and continues to smile as the meddroid ticks his life away.

Besany opens her eyes and stares at the clerk who’s been calling her: “Miss? Hello, Miss?” nearly a hundred times. The line’s near tripled behind her, leading man and Twi’lek and Rodian and Iridonian to a plasteel countertop laced with baked desserts and her spare credits. Irritated glances cast pointedly her way almost bother her— _almost_ —if only she had just a little more energy and a little more caffa and a lot more sleep.

A _lot_ more sleep.

 


	13. Date Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A couple years after the end of the war, 'date night' took on a rather expected meaning among Mandalorians.

(prompt 13 – "Turn off that damn music!")

**Date Night**

 

 

To say it was a distraction would be an understatement—but it was the kind of distraction they could use in a time like this, so Ordo allowed it to stand. He cased the underground walkway, taking note as he went of structural integrity, utility pipes and holonet network.

Above ground, he knew Besany moved in on their target.

"Can we go somewhere quiet after this?" Her voice through the comms, as if she read his thoughts.

"Helmet's sound proofing not good enough?" He was genuinely curious. 

"It's not that." A sigh. "The bass of the song is giving me a headache. Vibrating through the armor."

Ordo made note of the issue. "I'll talk to Jaing, see if we can do something about that."

He paused at the end of the tunnel. The schematics Mereel had supplied told him it should have continued another ten meters, yet there was a barrier that told him it wasn't the case. 

"Who even listens to this kind of music?" Besany didn't whine, but if she did... Ordo imagined it would be like how she sounded now. "I've half a mind to take some pain blockers."

"K'atini," he said. _It's only pain._ He switched on his thermal vision and... there.

"I know." She took a shaky intake of breath—a tell he took note of that never failed to bring a flood of _good feelings,_ the kind he didn't necessarily need but always enjoyed, even before she spoke. "You should come up and kiss me to make it better."

"Later," he promised. He swallowed and blinked back into focus. "I found the hostages."

"Target in sight," she replied, voice steady and flat. It let him know that he didn't need to worry, she knew how to shake down a suspect with just her tone. "Let's get this over with."

"We can blow the sound system after," he rushed. "If that will make it better."

He could see from their linked visual feeds that she approached the target from the side. Right as she engaged, she replied: "Yes. That would help."

Ordo grinned and got to work.


	14. Cheffa Cake and Chips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a new baby in the family, and she doesn't want to think about it.

( prompt 14 - the pitter-patter of feet )

**Cheffa Cake and Chips**

 

 

He wasn’t her child.

Besany watched Sergeant Skirata cradle the small boy in his arms, his normally gruff exterior softened to a paternal kindness laced with heavy emotion. Part of her wanted to take the baby and give Kal a few minutes of respite, but the feeling was easily squashed by the urge to retreat.

Around her kitchen table sat three clone commandos—Niner, Atin, and Corr—chatting away over a plate of chips and nerf steak, while Kal tended to the baby on her rumpled couch. Leaning against the cold storage unit, Null-7, Mereel, picked apart a large slice of cheffa cake. The scene was almost like a tiny reunion, a mirror of a party some weeks ago, minus Darman and his Jedi General.

No one would notice if she took a breather on her balcony.

Agent Wennen welcomed the company. But the child— _Venku_ —looked too much like his father, and because clones all inadvertently shared the same genes… looked too much like Ordo. Though the agent often thought things through in meticulous detail, this was not an emotional line she wanted to travel. At least, not just yet.

The city of Coruscant dropped dramatically as she peered over the edge. No, she was not fond of heights.

Would she have to baby proof her home? Her grip on the banister tightened. What was she doing? She agreed to baby-sit, just another favor of many that she would do for _Kal’buir,_ but she did not know the first thing about raising younglings.

Not for the first time, she wondered if she was in over her head.

“Kind of windy today, isn’t it?”

She nearly jumped. Instead, she barked a startled laugh that sounded more of a mix between a gasp and a cough. To her right stepped up Mereel, who looked _just like Ordo_ … but wasn’t him.

“Someone at Coruscant Climate Control isn’t doing their job,” she joked halfheartedly. He shrugged, smiling. The silence stretched on, and though it wasn’t _uncomfortable,_ she still felt ill at ease.

Finally, she sighed. “What happens now, Mereel?”

The Null’s smile twitched as he looked out over the setting metropolis. “We have a few options,” he said slowly, as if he were tasting his words before he spoke them. “But it’ll take time.”

“Time that you, your brothers, don’t have,” Besany sighed. The clones aged twice as fast as home grown sentients. She _still_ couldn’t comprehend how they managed so much patient discipline, given the circumstances.

Mereel laughed dryly. “ _Ord’ika_ is on the job. I wouldn’t be too worried about it.”

“But I _do_ worry.” She sighed again and wrung her hands together as she leaned on the banister edge. “I do worry.”

He sent a sideways glance in her direction, and then gently patted her arm. “Give him a call,” he said with a knowing smile, and left to rejoin the party.

“But what if––” she called to his retreating back. The door cycled shut with a solid sense of finality.

The comlink felt cold in her hands. She turned the small, black box in her palm, fighting the fear that she’d call while he was in the middle of defusing a bomb, or _hunting with extreme prejudice,_ or some other awful situation in which a simple call could endanger his life. She cared for his safety, but simultaneously _hated_ not _knowing._ It tore at her in ways she, again, did not wish to analyze.

 _But Mereel said to call_ …

 

 

 

“Hello?” responded a gruff voice.

“It’s Besany.”

A pause. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes, I—am I interrupting you?”

Another pause. “No,” he said. She could almost hear the smile in his voice.

“I’m sorry. I just…” She chewed on her bottom lip, debating the wisdom of the direction her mind pointed her in.

“ _Bes’ika?”_

“Can I ask you where you are?” She blurted out, and immediately felt foolish. That was pushing the line. And anyway, why would he tell her? For all she knew, she could have been indirectly giving away his position to an unseen enemy.

“You can…” he trailed off. A faint grunt echoed through the device. It almost sounded like he struggled under the weight of something heavy.

An apology nearly left her lips when the comlink crackled. “But if you could open your front door…? The _di’kute_ seem to have forgotten how to work the controls.”

Besany nearly dropped the comlink as she rushed back inside.


	15. Care and Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, we all find a little care and comfort in small things.

( prompt 15 - flash! ; moment on film )

**Care and Comfort**

 

 

Besany rested in the crux of a sleep couch set up in the corner of the room. On the low table spread out before her rested her _beskar_ plates, separated and lined-up by size, all save for the ones in her hands polished and shined. 

It'd taken her time to amass the right to wear the armor, as she saw it. And now, having earned them, she took great care in keeping each portion cleaned and maintained. The metal warmed under her touch, but never more than room temperature, and the repetition of the clean, polish, and shine calmed her nerves late at night.

A flash lit up the dark room, and she smiled.

" _Cyar'ika,_ " she sighed. "What did I say?"

"Not to share the photos of you with your 'hair down'?"

Besany twisted her lips in a rueful smile, and found it hard to fight it down. "Is that really what I said?"

"I believe your exact words were..." Ordo paused as he reclined onto the couch beside her, one arm slipping behind her shoulders. "...I look terrible, don't show that to anyone." He placed a kiss to her temple. Her head moved to rest against him, her hands continuing to rub her left shoulder plate within a dirtied, well-worn rag. 

"I see," she hummed. "Well, since I was so vague, might I inquire as to what the record is for?"

"Personal, private," he replied as he settled deeper into the cushions, letting out a low contented sigh. "I have eidetic memory, but a physical copy is comforting."

"That's thoughtful," She turned to place a kiss at the corner of his mouth. "Perhaps one day I'll be able to appreciate them."

"Then can I show them to _ner aliit_?" 

"Well..." Besany considered it as she wiped off the last of the shine and placed the shoulder piece down. "Show me the ones you have first. I don't want to look like a total fool."

"Oh, _cyar'ika,_ " he pressed his lips to her hair. "You look like a professional, always."

Besany let her eyes slide closed as she yawned. "I won't fight you on that."

"Good." She felt him smile against her. "Are you done?"

She pushed the sleep from her eyes to peer at the armor pieces. "Yes—" she yawned. "That was the last one."

"Come on, then." Ordo slid his free arm beneath her legs and lifted her as though she weighed nothing, cradling her against his chest. "I want to make more memories, starting early tomorrow."

"Very funny," she sighed against his neck, and yawned again. "Just no records in the bedroom."

"Deal," he chuckled, and pressed another kiss to her hair. “Rest well, _cyar'ika._ ”


	16. Sense and Sensitivity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes all one can do is let themselves be taken up in the whirlwind of energy and find peace in the center of it.

( prompt 16 - the joys of family )

**Sense and Sensitivity**

 

 

They come and go as ghosts in her tiny, one person apartment. Every visit filled up the walls with a different kind of energy, a different kind of beat, a different kind of presence that their absence magnified exactly how tired, and lonely, and quiet she was when she’s alone.

She sat on her couch with her legs cross-legged and tucked up under her, a mug of _behot,_ as Prudii called it when he served it to her, cradled in between her hands. Not hot enough to scald, not hot enough to warrant putting down, but too hot to drink for her tastes.

Sometimes, all she could do was take in the energy that Ordo, with his brothers, brought into her space. Watch, silently, as they found themselves slowly more comfortable than they’d been the last time they visited, and a little less so than the next time they’d arrive, all buzzing around Ordo at the center.

His eyes caught hers watching him from across the distance that spanned the living space, and he smiled in the sheepish, slightly embarrassed way he does when caught in something he, maybe, shouldn’t have been doing.

For the moment, she couldn’t quite remember what _she_ was supposed to be doing, either. 

He signed to her, something to do with the snacks lined up on the island, she assumed. Him and three of his brothers, Prudii-Mereel-A’den in the order that they entered after him, brought some delicacy or other that still needed time in the oven — required cooking in a _certain way_ , and A’den explicitly commandeered her kitchen _for_ , but only after her acquiescence. 

She shook her head with a softly blossomed smile pulling at her lips.

Normal. _Content_. That’s what that was. A breath of normalcy in the chaos of this past year.

Ordo turned, breaking eye contact to focus on Mereel’s rapid-fire storytelling — nothing Besany was really awake enough to listen to, and nothing she knew she’d miss. She watched, instead, as Ordo’s eyes widened, the corners creased, and his head tilted back in surprise as he laughed. 

When he laughed, it’s like his whole body released the tension he picked up every second of every day. 

A small twist of pain crossed her heart and she dipped her head to take a sip of _behot_. It warmed and it calmed, and she found it soothing. She closed her eyes to take another sip.

The couch dipped as Ordo joined her, one arm slung over the back behind her head. “A’den reports another hour. Think you can wait that long?”

“An hour?” What did her stomach say? Maybe. But, well, that’s what the snacks were for. 

“The meat is _very sensitive_ , he said.”

From across her apartment, A’den motioned with a whisk. “I refuse to risk hurting its feelings.”

Mereel placed a hand on A’den’s wrist near immediately, and brought the whisk down. “Don’t, _ner vod_. It’s rude to gesture with kitchen implements.”

“ _Osik_ ,” A’den sighed. “I forgot where we are.”

“Don’t know how,” Prudii managed around a morsel of some brightly-colored powdered green cube. “It’s _warm_  outside.”

“I was _focused_ on the _meat_ —”

“ _W_ — _atch_ where you’re pointing that thing!”

Besany couldn’t help the laugh that tumbled out. She turned her head to deliver a kiss at the edge of Ordo’s jaw. “I think I can manage.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Holy shit an UPDATE?" Yes. Yes, indeedy. 
> 
> Listen. I'm sorry it took me this long. But I WILL finish these this year. I know. It's a karkin' miracle.


	17. At Least I won

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ordo knows Ordo messed up, but Ordo doesn’t want to discuss it. Besany says: too bad.

(prompt 17 - thirst; hunger)

**At Least I Won**

 

“Do you want to talk about?” she asked, soft, as she held the ice pack up to his swollen jaw. 

“No.” He pressed his fingers into the lace material that covered the table that day. Traced the pattern of knotted string over to the drink that stood alone. He grazed his fingertips to the cooled glass sweating on her table, leaving a thin line of dampened fabric around the base, and considered lifting it to his mouth — then discarded that idea just as quickly. His mouth felt dry, raw.

Pained.

“Are you sure?” 

“ _Yes._ ” He didn’t flinch, but even saying  _that_  hurt. 

Would a smile suffice? Did she want a platitude? No. Besany would never accept something so thin and superficial. 

No. She  _noticed_ , and he was going to have to accept that she noticed, and he would not be able to avoid this conversation indefinitely.

“Fine,” she said, clipped. That tone. He did not like that tone. “But don’t think I didn’t see that.”

“I’m not a mind reader.”

She removed the ice from his face and placed it on the table.

“No?”

He held still as she lowered herself to examine his jaw.

“Are you sure?”

“…yes.” He struggled to understand what was happening. Eyes unfocused, focused, tongue running over his teeth. All still in place, despite the taste of copper that stained his taste buds. His.

She proceeded to apply a bacta-patch to the worst of the bruising. 

Rigid, stock-still even as pain blossomed in violent, bright patches that sparked in his vision and brought his attention crashing to the present moment. To the glass of water on the table. To his dry, scratched, throat.

Agony is a glass of water that sits just beyond reach of a parched man in the middle of the Sundari wastes dying of thirst. Suffering is to watch that water sweat in the heat. Hydration evaporated under sun and sky.

“You  _let_  him hit you.” She pressed the patch  _firmly_  into place.

Pain spiked across his eyes. He closed them.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He parted his lips enough to lick them. He really did not want to have a  _conversation_  right this second. He wanted the water. She did not withhold the water from him. Yet here he was … not drinking the water. Enduring the conversation.

Why, indeed. “ _Nakar’mi_.” 

“You don’t know.”

He nodded stiffly. Another press, and he could,  _slowly_ , feel the effects of the bacta slowly seep into his skin. Pain dulled — though it still threatened, there, beneath the surface. 

Her fingers departed from the scene of his discontent. His fingers itched the lace on the table.

She breathed in one long, slow, inhale — and released the exhale just as slowly. 

“Fine.” She released the word from the depths of her frustration with a sigh. “We don’t have to talk about it now. But I do intend to revisit this — especially if you continue to pick a fight and goad someone into hitting you first.”

“I have every right to defend myself—”

“ _I knew it_.” She slapped the table. The cooled glass shifted against the edges of his fingertips. 

The numbing sensation that followed the placement of the bacta patch allowed him some, small, space in which to speak a  _little_  easier.

But how could Ordo describe the  _need_  to pick a fight? The  _itch_  buried deep in his joints, tensed along the lines of his neck,  _hungered_  for an outlet, an expression, a release valve only he could turn if only he could find the opportunity because sometimes,  _that_ was what he was good at and he would  _love_  to go back to it. Disappear into it. Leave one war to facilitate another.

It’s not what they ran for.

He gently pushed the glass away from his fingertips. A dying man on the wastes of Sundari. 

“He had no right to speak to you that way,” Ordo said, instead, because it was true.

“I didn’t ask you to fight for me.”

“I would die for you.” He looked up at her, earnest. Angry. Suffocated. Suffocating.

Besany lifted the glass on the table, away from his hand. She stared down at him, height an advantage with him seated as he is and her standing over him. Blocking the light of the room. A halo of frustration, still in her evening clothes. Grief sprung to her eyes, replaced by anger, by frustration, and finally exhaustion. “Ordo …”

How could he want for anything when her presence is a gift? 

Her hand gently, so gently, touched the point of his chin and tilted his head up. 

“ _Pick_  your battles  _better_.” The worry she wore so openly creased her brows, lined her face and aged her in a moment before his eyes. And yet, and even so, she was still so radiant. “Because I’m not seeing you dead over an expensive dinner.” 

His lips parted, intent on correcting it to  _her_  and  _not the dinner_ , but she interrupted him with the glass, with the water he wanted,  _needed_ , to rush over his tongue and quench the desert that was his mouth. A small spot of red polluted the water as she pulled the glass away from him.

“I’m sorry,” he spoke after a moment, after running his tongue over his teeth a second time. Grief, more powerful than before, squeezed around his heart. 

She gently held the water to his mouth again, and he drank. 

Silence dragged in between his sips and her steady, controlled, breathing. He didn’t dare reach for the hand that helped him drink, nor so much as move a hair out of place. Frozen in the moment, under her scrutiny, suddenly exhausted by the sudden crushing end of his adrenaline high.

“That was … so, so  _stupid_ , Ordo.” 

He cringed. “I know.”

“And whatever is  _really_ bothering you?” She placed the empty glass back to the table, slightly ajar of the perfect ring it left behind. “We don’t have to talk about it right now. But, I don’t appreciate being the scapegoat for you getting hurt.”

“You’re not—”

“Please save it, Ordo.” She smoothed the hairs of his head, then leaned down to press a soft kiss to his crown. “I love you. I don’t want you to die for me. I don’t want you to die at all.” 

The quiet that followed her statement dragged. He settled deeper into his discomfort, insecurity threatening to overburden him.  _I thought I was past this_.

And with no response, Besany gently kissed his head a second time, then released him from her grasp. “I’m heading to bed. When you’re ready, come find me.”

And then he watched her go.

One hand on the table, pressed to the damp ring in the lacy fabric. Rubbed, slowly, the threads that bumped and knotted in hand-woven pattern. Hours spent to painstakingly bring together the art beneath his fingertips.

Attention on the table. Then the door to the hall, to the bedroom. Back to the table. The glass. The forgotten pack of ice on the table. The door.

He breathed. 

Twisted the lace between his fingertips.

And, finally, slowly, rose from his chair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Glossary**  
>  _nakar'mi_ \- to be unaware, to not know


	18. From Iego

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well she can't be a Diathim anyway. She doesn't have wings.

(prompt 18 - sleeping angel)

**From Iego**

 

If the average person—with any knowledge of the Grand Army of the Republic beyond the over-simplified  _osik_  fed daily by the media—thought the  _clones_  worked hard, they had never met an inexorably driven, over-qualified Agent of said Republic.

Ordo arrived at this conclusion around the third time his  _cyar’ika_ ’s eyes slipped closed and her propped up head came dangerously close to falling off her palm, and into the serving of mashed potatoes on her dinner plate. He found this side of her worrying, yet endearing somehow—though he’d never risk her embarrassment-fueled wrath by saying as much to her face.

The fourth time it happened, he was up and out of his chair in seconds. His hip bumped the edge of the table and knocked over an almost-empty glass of muja juice. The remnants of purple-pink liquid spilled over the tablecloth and spread outward like curled, reaching fingers through the fawn colored fabric.

The brief flare of pain didn’t give him pause, though a light stream of self-deprecating curses  _did_  flash through his mind. After all, there were more important matters at hand.

“I’m  _fine,_ ” she protested as he scooped her up into his arms. “You need… to eat…”

“…I was just about finished, anyway,” Ordo murmured against her hair, softly laying a kiss atop her head as he held her closer to his chest. Her arms slipped around his neck and she buried her face into his shoulder as he left the dining area.

The rest of the small apartment was dark, but his eyes adjusted well enough to navigate the way to her bedroom.

She felt lighter to him, somehow. For being as gorgeous, tall, and intimidating as she was, he thought she’d weigh more. Was she losing weight? Getting enough sleep?

“Are you all right,  _cyar’ika?_ ” he inquired softly as he dodged the couch, the coffee table, and a stray pile of books.

“’mm just… stressed…” She sighed, breath hot on the exposed skin above the collar of his shirt. A chill ran down his spine. She pressed a soft kiss that, for reasons unknown to the Null, felt as though it scorched his neck and instantly brought responses from…  _other_  areas.

He nearly dropped her.

“Bes- _besany,_ ” he stumbled, feeling his face flush and suddenly thankful that the lights were  _off._

She responded with a sleepy, incoherent mumble.

Ordo was torn between utter relief and muted disappointment—relieved because he’d finally reached her bed and was able to tuck her in without difficulty, but disappointed due to the sudden lack of affection.

He eased onto the side of the bed for a moment to watch her sleep.

_Angel_ , he thought idly. Though he knew that  _Angel_  was another word for  _Diathim_ —supposed shape-shifting creatures whom lived on the moons of Iego and resembled beautiful, glowing versions of whatever species looked upon them—he allowed for this one reassessment… if only because he thought that, perhaps, the name fit Besany more.

The Null struggled and failed to suppress a smile as Besany made a strange face, her nose and mouth scrunching up as a loose lock of platinum blond hair fell over her brow. He leaned over and gently brushed the strands away. She breathed deeply, slowly, a sure sign that she was fast asleep.

Satisfied, Ordo stood up and headed back to the dining room. S _omeone_ had to clean up the juice he had spilled, and the dishes certainly weren't going to take care of themselves.


	19. To Be Young Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I see the way he looks at you, my dear,” Quina replies seriously, and nods with her wrinkled arms crossed over her chest. “These old eyes? They see all.”

(prompt 19 - the next door neighbor)

**To Be Young Again**

 

“Where’s that lovely young man that hangs around you all the time?” Mrs. Adma Quina Forbert questions from her balcony to the woman who stands on the other side of a two meter gap jutting out the side of a very tall residential apartment building. “I’ve baked a cake, and I’m sure Sebastian would like to see him again. The fat cat has taken  _quite_  a liking to him.”

“He’s… on the other side of the galaxy, by now,” the young woman says sadly as she leans against her own balcony’s banister.

Quina clucks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Oh! My dear girl, I am so sorry.”

Not far from them, the sky is filled with Coruscant’s heavy air traffic. Air-speeders loaded with all kinds of sentients roar by, filling the bright evening with all kinds of air and sound pollution. But that’s the life of a city planet, and why Adma Quina Forbert could never think of leaving.

The young, tall and blond woman starts, eyes wide in surprise. “N-no, that’s not what I meant. He’s… he’s  _working,_ ” she explains quickly, the words tumbling out of her mouth.

Quina let’s out a high pitched chuckle as her beloved Sebastian rubs up against her feet.  _You are a fat feline, you are,_  she thinks as she bends down to scratch the  _round_  pet behind his ears, and then motions to her neighbor.

“You ought to keep that man on a tight leash, my girl.” She pauses to cackle, amusement dancing in her beady black eyes. “Back in  _my_ day, if a man and woman had been as serious as  _you two_  are, why, they’d be married with children on the way.”

“E-excuse me?” The blond woman blushes a deep shade of red as she struggles to fix the tight bun atop her head. “I’ve barely known him a year yet, Mrs. Forbert.”

Adma Quina Forbert merely let’s out a soft snort in reply, and then  _shoos_  her  _round_  Sebastian. The cat’s flat face scrunches in clear displeasure, but he knows better than to act against her wishes, and disappears inside the loft.

“I see the way he looks at you, my dear,” Quina replies seriously, and nods with her wrinkled arms crossed over her chest. “These old eyes? They see  _all._ ”

Her neighbor touches a hand to her mouth, the blush fading slightly as she stares out across the gap to Quina. She stares for a long moment, at least until the beep of a comlink breaks the silence.

Adma Quina Forbert watches the young woman pull out the comlink, watches as her wide eyes read the name written across the screen and instantly softens around the edges. The hard, all-business professional by the name of Wennen warps into a woman, Quina notes pleasantly, a young woman deeply in love.

_Ah,_  Misses Forbert thinks.  _To be young again._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. 
> 
> The novel (and the author) get a lot of flack... However, if you consider yourself a fan of the clone troopers (particularly dealing with soldier-mentality and disillusionment in war), then the books are worth at least a once-through, for fresh perspective. It is difficult to find "common man" points of view in the Star Wars fandom, particularly sympathetic ones that are critical of Jedi, and for that reason alone the books are interesting. 
> 
> If you're wondering if this is the same person who posted on LJ a couple years back: yes. I'm working on moving everything here and... actually filling everything.


End file.
